Mikel Forcada EA5IYL / N7EESKeep proprietary digital modes off ham radio!
https://ea5iyl.blogspot.com/2023/08/keep-proprietary-digital-modes-off-ham.html
Christian HB9HOX@Ea5iyl For me, #AmateurRadio is about experimentation and learning. #FreeOpenSourceSoftware and #FreeOpenHardware is key to this.
And no, it is not free as in free beer, but free as in free speech.
An alternative would be easy accessible documentation with easy to understand specifications. But I ofthen find it hard, if not impossible, to find any documentation. And if I do, I usually struggle to understand.
Ossi OH8HUB@hb9hox @Ea5iyl I'm advocate of open source also. But it is not simple. If you do it for your freetime then the burden of maintenance is a real chore. And you still need to have your day job. Alternative is to sell your product and work it full time to pay the bills.
Innovation (closed source or not) is the key. Moving forward is key. Competition is good. If someone steps up with FOSS competitor for VARA: Good! But if not then we continue using VARA because it gets the job done.
@oh8hub @hb9hox I understand your point of view. I spun off a company from the University: it sells services (not products) based on free/open-source software: an alternative business model (still going). Maintenance: free/open-source software can be in the hands of a community and often is. Open-source innovation has the potential for a larger uptake, community and business building. If you do not use closed-source software and licences, VARA is effectively an encrypted mode.
@Ea5iyl @oh8hub Agreed, quite a some ham radio software is built and shared by individuals. And many of them are shared in a way that are not inviting to build a community. At least not a community of contributors.
But there are also projects out there ticking all the boxes: version control, contribution guide, project documentation, and just general open source best practises. Projects like #M17project , #OpenRTX, #GNURadio, #FutureSDR to just name a few.